When I write fitness articles in which I say that person X has lost many kilos by doing a certain activity, invariably person Y writes to me saying that in his case, the same physical activity did not make him lose weight, indeed, maybe the it even made you fat. It happens for example when I talk about walking, here understood as the exercise of walking with the aim of losing weight: in the gym you do a kind of aerobics on a treadmill of the same name, but without reaching such programs, I have often written that walking makes you lose weight. Certainly not the stroll. Walking briskly for at least two hours a day is a different activity than running, but according to many studies, better for losing weight. Yet, there are those who write to me that, even if they do two hours or more a day at a brisk pace, they do not lose an ounce. Or, speaking of other activities, I know people who have never lost a kilo while running or playing five-a-side football: they had the panzetta and the panzetta remained. You may ask yourself: but then exercising does NOT work to lose weight?
The answer is only one: not always.
According to Yann C. Klimentidis, a researcher at the University of Arizona in Tucson andauthor among others of a recent study , the reason why for some people sport would not lead to weight loss is the genetic predisposition to obesity, which also affects the way the body responds to physical activity. There are people who are on a diet and do not lose weight, despite the fact that the diet has worked on friends and relatives; there are people who have gained weight or have not lost weight after joining the gym. This is because both the diet and the gym are two stress factors for the body: here we see the big limit of calories and the equation calories ingested = calories spent to stay fit. The body reacts to stress by gaining weight or losing weight. In this reaction there is also a predisposition to obesity.
What to do if we suspect we are genetically predisposed to obesity?Nothing, apart from understanding that playing sports or going on a diet not only could not work, and if it never worked except for very short periods, a suspicion should come to us, especially if in the family we have full-blown cases of obese relatives. Second, aim for stress reduction as a weight loss strategy. This also works in part with those who are genetically predisposed to obesity. Reducing environmental stress, eating healthy and balanced, eating only natural foods and nothing industrial can work much better than the explicit stress of a low-calorie or restrictive diet of a macronutrient even for those who tend to gain weight. In parallel, low impact activities can be useful not so much to reduce body weight, but to increase our level of activity. These two things,they could work in those who tend to gain weight by doing any kind of diet or going to the gym.